In the course of my climbing years, every once in a while I would photograph my currently used gear. Here's a photo I scanned recently that had me laughing (and cringing) a bit:

My living room floor as I packed for a solo trip up Mt. Shasta in 1977. Anyone else old enough to remember 'shag carpets'? (Takes on a whole new meaning since the movie, "Austin Powers", eh? )

I guess the comics (lower right) were for the inevitable 'nature's call'... Also, can't help noticing that my brand new crampons had no straps, yet. Hopefully, I didn't end up using the thin nylon 'clothes line' lying on top of them, but, obviously, I was certainly a 'dirt bag' mountaineer at the time...

We used goldline in my first mountaineering class (Colorado Outward Bound School, 1977). Granted OB was rather old skool, as we climbed in mountain boots, tied our own swami belts for harnesses and used body belays.

I usually solo, and I almost always take rope.. there just isn't much worth climbing that can be easily/safely down-climbed.

On steep rock or ice, sure, but OP was talking about Shasta. No ice hammer in the photo so probably not planning steep ice (though maybe he was going to cut steps with that piolet). Maybe rapping off pickets? Really just curious what the route and plan was considering the gear.

Good question. At the time I took the photo, my friend Dave was also going (we intended to try the Whitney Glacier route), but he had to cancel at the last minute due to work related issues. His cancelling probably saved our lives since we were probably way too inexperienced for glacier travel at the time. I ended up soloing the Whitney/ Bolam route.

Week long solo winter trip to the High White Mountains. Starting point was Cottonwood Creek in Fish Lake Valley. I think this trip was somewhat inspired by Rowell's trip report in "High and Wild".

Probably should have vacuumed first before taking the picture... I hope that I didn't actually carry all three fuel containers shown here. I still have several of the bamboo wands (far right center) and they came in useful for planning the automatic sprinkler system that I installed in our back yard a few years ago.

Heh. My first rope was hawser-laid too. A horrible greasy-feeling polypropylene or nylon number with so much bounce it was like swinging off a bungee cord. I still have a pair of crampons like that (I made my own straps). That thin cord lying on top of them makes me think yours are czech ex-army right?

Oh and I still have, use and love my figure-eight descender and I guess my Trangia stormcooker must be 30 years old now.

Lesseee, what else? Oh yeah, Somewhere in the cupboard there's a pair of Asolo Canyons that would have to be 30 years old. I'll have to check and see if they still stink. Also still have my original home-made pirate-copy of a Whillans sit-harness made up of seatbelt webbing but it's retired nowadays.Man that thing was a ball crusher.

On Boyblue's second photo (the one with the snowshoes) what are those two things just to viewer's right of the stove, resting on brown squares of ... is that suede? I'm talking about the metal objects that look like tiny skis with irregular prongs on top. My best guess it that they're screw-on crampons for the snowshoes, but why are they asymmetric?

nartreb wrote:On Boyblue's second photo (the one with the snowshoes) what are those two things just to viewer's right of the stove, resting on brown squares of ... is that suede? I'm talking about the metal objects that look like tiny skis with irregular prongs on top. My best guess it that they're screw-on crampons for the snowshoes, but why are they asymmetric?

Exactly what they are! In fact, if you look to the left of the weird cigar-shaped object (don't quite remember what that is), you'll see a small adjustable spanner that I used to carry for the purpose of attaching or removing that hardware from my snowshoes. No wonder my back hurts just looking at all this s**t.